Lightning Strikes Delay Shuttle Launch

Tisha_AH writes "The Space Shuttle has had its launch delayed for inspection after several lightning strikes to the launch tower and/or shuttle. Several different technologies have been applied by NASA to divert the strike energy to ground potentials with Air Terminals (lightning rods), surge protectors or the often-disputed use of static dissipator brushes. One technology that appears promising is to cause a lightning strike (to a safe location) through the use of short pulsed ultraviolet lasers. Maybe in the future, once the technology matures, we may find widespread use of UV lasers to protect space launch vehicles, antenna towers or buildings."

Re:

[dotgain]

15 feet!? You were either way off in your measurement, extremely lucky, one-legged, or have a pretty perverse definition of 'awesome'.

None of the strikes hit the shuttle...

[fraik]

"None of the strikes hit the shuttle or its external tank and solid rocket boosters, but there were strikes to the lightning mast and water tower."

Re:None of the strikes hit the shuttle...

[Cruciform]

Awesome! Under the rules of homepathy that water is now imbued with lightning!
Somebody needs to get a distribution deal. With the markup we can finance that Mars mission way ahead of schedule.

Re:

[Kell Bengal]

And remember, the less you use the better it works!

...

Somehow.

Re:None of the strikes hit the shuttle...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

So if I don't use any, does that mean that I can die from a massive overdose?

Re:

[Kell Bengal]

Yes - it's very dangerous to overdose on homeopathic medicines.

You'd better buy this sugar water just to be safe. A bargain at only $100!

Re:

[Hognoxious]

I have prior art.

Regards,
    Zeus.
   

Re:

[xOneca]

there were strikes to the [...] water tower.

Could it be better that "electrolysis" than from urine [slashdot.org]?

Also in BBC

[physburn]

The BBC has the story here [bbc.co.uk]

--

Nasa can't afford to many delays in there program, if there are to get the ISS finished before the Shuttle program shutdowns down in september next year. The launch is now rescheduled to Sunday.

--

Space Craft [feeddistiller.com] Feed @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]

Re:

[e9th]

But there is some good news. Remember Atlantis' stuck knob [slashdot.org]? They managed to pull it out by hand [space.com] a while back.

Re:

[e9th]

I probably should have worded that a bit differently.

Re:

[Kratisto]

What have they done! Pulling out Atlantis' stuck knob by hand is the reason that continent sank in the first place!

Spare U.S. The AgonY of Space Shuttle Failure

[Anonymous Coward]

and just subcontract the work to theSoyuz engineers [energia.ru].

What's next on the list of delays: slow pizza delivery,
mice, North Korean botnets, or Bruno?

Yours In Socialism,
Kilgore Trout

Bad Summary

[PNutts]

From TFA: None of the strikes hit the shuttle or its external tank and solid rocket boosters, but there were strikes to the lightning mast and water tower.

Sheesh... You'd think it was Microsoft article.

Like This

[timeOday]

Not pertinent to the current delays, but this story reminded me of a cool picture [nasa.gov].

I wonder if lasers could be used to divert lightning from commercial airliners in-flight? There was some speculation [nzherald.co.nz] it could have contributed to the recent Air France crash, though apparently it's not a leading theory.

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

The picture is electrifying! Thanks.

Re:Like This

[cathector]

the lasers work by ionizing the air between the cloud and the source of the laser, effectively creating a guide wire which the lightning then follows from the cloud to .. the source of the laser. which in the case of an airplane would pretty much have to be the airplane, so i'm not sure it's quite what you want.

Re:

[nethenson]

At least you would control the impact point, and would be able to divert the lightning from the most sensitive areas like the engines or the electronics. And you could force it to hit at a more prepared area of the airplane.

Re:Like This

[cathector]

i guess that's so.
although a little googling seems to indicate that airplanes are pretty well lightning-protected these days as it is.

Re:

[Hognoxious]

Couldn't you just encase the plane in a conductive substance, such as some kind of metal?

but...

[at_slashdot]

can we mount UV lasers on sharks?

power

[heptapod]

Maybe they'll use the short pulsed ultraviolet lasers to make sure lightning strikes the vicinity of vast capacitors to generate energy for a city.

Re:

[cathector]

that's an interesting idea.
seems like it should be testable with good old feet-on-carpet static electricity and some small cap's.

strike

[confused one]

While it has been pointed out that none of the strikes hit the shuttle itself... 7 of them hit the catenary wires or tower at the launch site and 2 of those were large enough to exceed the safety limit, inducing a 110V surge in the shuttle power system. While there's no damage indicated yet, this 24 hour stand down is to give the engineers and technicians time to check over the shuttle and all of the launch hardware.

I wonder...

[robinesque]

Could this be used to collect lightning?

Re:

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, there are a few reasons for Florida.

First, if you want to launch a spacecraft into an equatorial orbit, it's best to launch it from the equator. The rotation of the earth will give you about an 850 MPH boost. This is one reason that things that launch from Florida travel east. The further north you travel, the less rotational energy you get. If you consider the continental US, you're pretty much looking at either Florida or the bottom part of Texas.

Second, ideally you want very little going on to

Re:

[baegucb]

So why wasn't Hawaii used? It's the furthest southern state and there's lots of water before reaching California. I know why the Johnson Space Center came about...LBJ.

Re:

[downix]

At the time this was decided, Hawaii wasn't a US State.

Re:

[R3d M3rcury]

I'd imagine one obvious reason would be logistics--it's probably easier and quicker to transport rocket parts to Florida than it is to Hawaii.

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[Hognoxious]

it's probably easier and quicker to transport rocket parts to Florida than it is to Hawaii.

You mean there's something that isn't made in China?

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[robinesque]

Yeah, they use a train to carry the boosters to the launch site. No trains to Hawaii! We need a chunnel 2.

Video of the incident

[sponga]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYHY_BVj1Xo [youtube.com]

I can't imagine the water tower being too complicated in electronics,open valve to get the water to the site to cool the concrete right?

Other electronics on shuttle though must be checked.

Re:

[confused one]

There were 7 strikes that hit the water tower, launch tower and protective catenary wires. At least 2 of them exceeded safety limits; inducing unacceptable voltage spikes in electrical systems.

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Launch sites are in the southernmost parts of the US in order to get some extra push from Earth's rotation. (The rotational velocity is the highest at the equator.) If there were sufficient access to shipping and industry, launch sites ought to be valuable in other countries along the equator...

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[Glock27]

Don't forget the US has an equatorial launch facility: "2500 miles southwest of Hawaii on Omelek Island, part of the Reagan Test Site (RTS) at United States Army Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA) in the Central Pacific." That's where SpaceX has tried some launches...

Re:Better Idea

[R3d M3rcury]

Which is why most European Space Agency missions are launched from French Guiana [arianespace.com].

Re:

[Velocir]

Why is this modded Funny instead of Informative?

Re:

[Guysmiley777]

The majority of Europe is also at a much higher latitude. The southern tip of Florida is about the same latitude as southern Algeria.

What a tremendous pain in the ass.

[Bootsy Collins]

My group has a satellite going up on this launch. It got delayed from last month; now it's delayed again.

Atlantis shuttle news -- Knob removed, window OK

[4181]

The knob that was stuck between the dashboard and windshield of Atlantis (discussed here two weeks ago [slashdot.org]) was succesfully removed [nasaspaceflight.com] using dry ice, a pressurized orbiter, and "hand pressure to manipulate it loose". The window subsequently passed inspection [nasaspaceflight.com]. Recall that window replacement could have caused a six month delay.

Re:

[Tisha_AH]

They are not CW (continuous wave) lasers, they are pulsed with pulses in the microsecond range (just like the flash on a camera).. There is a power equation on the paper postulating that 200 pSec (picosecond) pulses at 50 MW (megawatts) are seen as optimal.

If my math is right (10 -12 is a picosecond) multiplied by pulse power 50,000,000 watts per pulse, then factoring in lasing efficiencies (for the sake of argument, lets assume that the laser is only 10% efficient). This comes out to around 1/10th of a wat